The Stupidity of Gabor Steingart

News Flash: Obama Wins Virginia. Obama siegt in Virginia.

Readers of Der Spiegel turn to the US correspondent Gabor Steingart for information about politics in the United States. After all, Steingart is based in Washington DC and knows what is really going on behind the scenes.  Gabor Steingart is the expert.

This is what Herr Steingart has been telling the German reading public: The End of the Obama Revolution

"The euphoria is gone, the friendly fire has started: Barack Obama is suddenly looking less like a superstar and more like just another candidate. His message isn't hitting home with the three most important groups of voters: women, older Americans and blue-collar workers.

 

 

REUTERS

Is the dream over for Obama?

All of those people who've been dreaming of America's first black president now have to slowly wake up. It'll happen one day, hopefully, but not in this election. And perhaps his name will be Barack Obama. But that first black president will have a more mature personality than that which Obama, 46, can offer American voters today."

And that is just ONE of Steingart's many articles which reported on the collapse of Obama candidacy.
I worked for the Obama campaign in Maine, which is 98% white and "blue collar" with 80% of the voters with income of under $50,000.  Barack Obama carried the Maine Democratic Caucus by a huge margin.  In my town, the voting was delayed for 2 hours because of the surge of first-time voters, independent voters, and even Republican voters, who wanted to register as Democrats so they could vote for ....Barack Obama.

Steingart would be much better off reporting over at the Washington Times - the neocon daily owned by cult-leader Sun Myong Moon.

Comments

[Gerd]

Would love to take part in Vermont primary. Mmm, Steingart surprises me here.

[Hattie]

Hmm. He keeps winning and yet his campaign is on the point of collapse? Very strange.
But I'm still for Hillary. It's because his charisma makes me very nervous.
I am trying to find out who is backing him in the Hawaii caucus. At this point, most of them are for Clinton. If a few key people here support him, I will look upon his candidacy more kindly, I'm sure. Since I don't know everything, and all.
And it could be that his approach is what we need. Hillary is cautious, a legislator by nature, whereas Obama obviously wants to take charge.

[Hattie]

There is a very worrisome piece by Joe Wilson about Clinton and Obama here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/battletested_b_86355.html
Of course Wilson's a spook, but the comments he quotes from Obama make me feel uneasy, to say the least.

[David]

The vote to authorize pre-emptive war in October 2002 was the great moral test of our time.

HRC failed that test, and to this day has refused to acknowledge it as a terrible mistake.

Go back and see who in Congress had the courage to vote NAY. There were plenty. But Hillary was not one of them.

[Ben]

Thanks for this, David. I've been wanting to blog about it too. Mr. Steingart's recent opinion pieces have been a constant source of irritation lately, especially his recent string of anti-Obama articles (btw, your "End of" link is wrong). But what's been most irksome is not even Steingart's stupidity, but the arrogant subtext that America is not capable of electing a black president. I'm patiently waiting for Steingart to eat his false-prophetic words and it looks like it may happen sooner than I thought.

[Ben]

The End of the Obama Revolution (by Gabor Steingart in Washington)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,530129,00.html

...and, lest we forget, filed dismissively after the Iowa caucus (presaging Bill Clinton's own 'fairy tale' comment): THE IOWA FAIRY TALE - Obama's Victory in Never-Never Land (By Gabor Steingart in Des Moines, Iowa)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,526606,00.html

Finally, I thought of you and your work in Maine this morning when I saw a recent clip from the Daily Show, describing the profound whiteness of that state: "In Maine they consider Lutherans colored" Ha!

[David]

Ben,

Thanks, I fixed the link.

Not only is Maine "white", it is also very rural,and poor. It also has the second (to Florida) oldest population in the country. Obama also won in the rural communities, which were considered Hillary strongholds.

Steingart is living in a dream-world.

[Axel]

It's a bit off-topic but recently, Der Spiegel has opened his huge digital archive. Everyone has now free access to the full text archive of the print issues, dating back to 1947! Only the respective last two weeks aren't available.

http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/index/

See also http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,534775,00.html for a short introduction of the new "SPIEGEL Wissen" section that additionally contains the complete Spiegel Online archive, Bertelsmann encyclopedia and a media archive. The search engine can be found here: http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/start/home.html

I think this is a real break through for everyone interested in German politics and society.

[Axel]

The guys at Spiegel Online are really funny - is this some kind of subversive Steingart bashing? They used the most unfavorable picture of her I've ever seen on German media to illustrate the article "Germany Watches Clinton Fight for Survival". Looks like she's giving the Hitler salute!

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,535271,00.html

[Folke Lehr]

Thank you so much for posting this article on Steingart! This guy is incredibly irritating whatever he is writing about, whether it is about the primaries or german politics. I really wonder why he is still beeing published since he is openly biased (on any topic) and consistently wrong with his predictions.
If you speak german and want to read something which is full of stereotypes and racism, check out his book "Weltkrieg um Wohlstand". Don't buy it though, get it from a library, you don't want to pay for this book.

[hardy]

don't panic!

gabor is just one of those silly guys in the environment of the ex-chief-editor of the "spiegel" and was handled as next possible chief after stefan aust was fired by the employes of the spiegel-mag who are part of the owners.

he does not reflect the opinion of germans, the mag itself has sent out a crew of various reporters with different views. most of them like obama, so what ...

just a crazy nut.

[remove-bookmark-spiegel.de]

I kindly suggest the website administrator to remove the link of "Spiegel online" from your "essential links". Such a biased NAZI type propaganda fails on that criteria.If you want some tabloid you can add "Bild". At list they are honest.

[David]

"I kindly suggest the website administrator to remove the link of "Spiegel online" from your "essential links"."

If Steingart were the only jounrnalist at SpOn, then I would certainly no longer link. But there are other (better) writers there...

[[email protected]]

"If Steingart were the only jounrnalist at SpOn, then I would certainly no longer link. But there are other (better) writers there... "

Admin: First of, thanks for the reply.I can understand you don't want to slam the door on other writers at SpOn. But when it comes to the so called "international correspondents" be it from US or Asia or Kenya, i see a pattern of systematic bias specially in SpOn. Below a Blog about Gregor Peter Schmitz of SpOn, i would like to recommend.

"Spiegel Online kopiert bei der Washington Post"
http://blogbar.de/archiv/2008/02/19/spiegel-online-kopiert-bei-der-washington-post/

[David]

@No-Spiegel,

Wow, good catch by DonA at blogbar!

Has Spiegel responded to this blatant plagiarism?

Has anyone pointed this out to the Washington Post?

[Ron P]

Mr. Steingart has been writing such off the wall articles on Senator Obama's campaign that he has a political agenda. What is this guys reputation in Germany. Does anyone really believe what he writes in Germany.??????

What a shame that readers in Germany are getting such poor journalism.

[Don Barfo y Basofia]

I have noticed that Der Spiegel's political commentary is prevalently neo-liberal (what US Americans stupidly enough call "conservative").

As bad, its reportage has been "interventionist" bordering on belligerent vis a vis the Middle East and Iran.

Not surprisingly it chastises Putin for complaining about the US's cordon-aux-misiles on Russia's border (supposedly aimed at Iran if one is dumb enough to believe Bush/Cheny lie).

Spiegel tops off what can only be described as a reactionary editorial bent with dollops of near hysterical of guilt laden political correctness.

I've given up reading DS, except to find out how Kute Knut is doing.

El Barfo

[justinmueller]

Since Steingart when I see Spiegel at the kiosk I smile and think what Idiots do read such hollow paper,which affords to entertain a stupid person link Steingart for years.

[obama98]

Gabor Steingart eat your sh***! Obama is the 44th president of America!God bless America!

[The big O]

Gabor Steingart eat your sh*** as you have promised you would do.And never dare to open your stupid demagogic mouth about Obama.Obama is the 44th president of America!
God bless America and the free world!
Those demagogues,racist,religious fanatics and hater,we will defeat you!

[Don Adams]

Don't believe a minute what some here are saying "just one correspondent among many." His personal website is actually "Der Spiegel" branded, logo and all - check it out at the link at my signature. If any other of their writers tried that, they'd be out on their butt before they could say "Achtung!"

Really funny, too, Steingart's recent comments on TV suggesting the U.S. should take a page from Germany's book after WWII. He didn't mention that the "Wirtschfatswunder" he's praising was financed through the Marshall Plan. That guy's a total political dimwhit.

[flirting tip]

I don't understand why you'd have to register as a Democrat to vote Obama. Is it so that he would get the most votes that actually count or something? So confusing to me...